


Mirror Image

by thesecretmichan



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Dark, F/M, M/M, Mirror Universe, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretmichan/pseuds/thesecretmichan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evil is not born, but made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Image

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to make sure you guys look at the warnings the tags before you read on, because it's definitely up there in the fucked up scale. I've been having a bit of a writer's block lately, so I wanted to write out something a little different to try and shake the muse loose. It's not as refined as some of my other works, but it does have a more poetic quality that I find I'm fond of. Enjoy!

_The mirror laughed; it gleaned my thoughts_  
 _And saw me cry my want:_  
 _Synthetic views - pathetic clues_  
 _To how I tick - and now you taunt,_  
 _You bleeding mirror, jibe another!_  
 _Just because I dream…_

Jim Kirk was six when he saw his first dead body.

"Who is he?" he asked in a hushed whisper, eyes wide and just a tad bit afraid as he stared into the glazed, lifeless face of the man before them. Though it was barely two in the morning, Jim was wide awake, his heart beating a mile a minute, pulse thundering deafeningly in his ears. Bright splatters marked the walls in dripping rorschach patterns. Jim saw a butterfly in one of them, thick swirls of green and brown. The mirror above the sink looked warped, as if someone had taken Jim's reflection and wrung it out like a wet sack of laundry.

Beside him, his brother Sam made a face of disinterest and padded back up the stairs. "Wake me up if something interesting happens," he called over his shoulder.

Even today, Jim could still recall the slight quiver in his voice, the tears in his eyes as he'd whispered again, "Mom?"

His mother turned and looked at him as if he were insane. She spat on the corpse and hissed, "Nobody important. George!" she yelled then. "Come and pick this filth-blooded devil off my kitchen floor!"

Jim's father stumbled into the kitchen, grumbling, "What the hell, woman?" He straightened as he saw the man on the floor. "How'd he get in here?"

"You tell me, Mr. Starfleet - you're the one who updated the security system," Winona simpered; her smirk fell and she jabbed a finger at the floor. "I thought they were too stupid to try shit like this."

George shrugged. "Shit happens; guess one of them thought they'd try and take over a Human household." Suddenly he noticed Jim standing in the corner. "The hell are you still doin' up? Go back to bed, Jim."

The blood never quite came out of the floorboards, and the rusty, slick copper smell haunted him for years afterwards.

***

When Jim was seven, he learned that if you were older, if you were bigger, if you were _stronger_ , well... you could do anything you wanted.

"You say one more word boy," the man who lived next door, Frank, slurred, "and I will whip you a new hide."

Jim bit down hard on his fist and hiccuped wet, fat tears into his fingertips. "I don't like this," he cried again. "I don't want to."

"Shh, shh," Frank soothed; he lifted a hand to pet Jim's hair, almost fondly. "Come on now, this doesn't hurt. It feels good, right? Come on, kid, your brother didn't put up this much of a fight."

Frank's voice slid like ink across his skin, soaking into every pore, dripping from him like some dank and dark disease. Jim bit back another sob. It didn't feel good - didn't feel good at all, and yet his parents were offworld, Sam was at a friend's house. Sam was too old, he'd said, but what did that have to do with anything? The only adult here was Frank, and adults made the rules, right? Jim's lip wobbled and he sniffled loudly as he wiped fresh tears from his face.

"Hush, now," Frank sang. "I'm gonna make you feel _good_."

***

"All hail the Empire!" Instructor Walsh barked as she slid into the classroom.

"All hail the Empire," the students dutifully replied.

Walsh eyed them all suspiciously. "In what year did the glorious Zefram Cochrane establish our dominance over the impure beasts that reside upon 40 Eridani A?"

"Twenty sixty-three," they chorused again. In the center of the class, Jim, age eleven, froze as mottled brown and green splashes of blood spilled across his vision. 

When he couldn't hold back his tiny whimper of discomfort, Walsh slapped her pointing stick to his cheek. "Have you forgotten the rules, Student Kirk?" she growled, grabbing his chin and yanking him up to look into her dark beady eyes.

"Do not speak unless spoken to," Jim rasped; he shook his head tightly. "No, Instructor; I haven't forgotten."

She released his face as if he'd burned her and wiped her hand on her uniform pants. "You will go stand at the wall," she ordered, turning back to the front, "and you will only return when you are certain you can abide by proper classroom etiquette." She pointed at another student. "Go to the bookshelf and get two books for Kirk to hold."

"Yes, Instructor," she replied; her voice was demure but her wicked smile bled through as she picked the two heaviest books on the shelf, dropping one in each of Jim's hands.

Jim nodded his thanks wordlessly, cheeks burning and shoulders stiff as he tiptoed to the back of the class.

***

It was times like this, Jim wondered as he was pushed face first into the dirt, why he was even born in the first place - born into this sick, twisted world where no one cared who hit you. In this world where nobody cared how many dead bodies you saw, or who touched you when you said no, why did Jim even bother trying? Another blow landed to the back of his head and Jim saw stars. He coughed up blood.

Why couldn't someone just kill him and be done with it?

***

"You sure do spend a lot of time at Frank's," his mother noted lightly from the couch.

Jim paused, hand halfway to the doorknob. He looked back to Winona and croaked, "Frank is a really nice guy." Inwardly, he screamed, _Frank is_ not _a nice guy! Mom,_ look at me _! Don't you care? Can't you see what he's doing to me?_

The antique clock on the wall clicked _tick, tick, tick_. It rang in Jim's ears, made his head swim and his stomach turn. He stared at his mother in desperation, willing her to understand. Frank was evil, and sick, like the rest of this world. In all the fairy tales he'd ever squirreled away over the years, all the books he'd read under his covers in the dead of night, there was always someone who came in (usually riding on a white horse, but Jim wasn't picky, he _wasn't_ ) and saved the princess from all the monsters, all the bad things. Someone who made the hurt go away - _why couldn't Jim have that_? Where was Jim's knight? Would no one come to save him?

"Is he?" Winona asked; she flipped a page in her book. "I've never really talked to him - he kinda keeps to himself." When Jim continued to stand there, she finally looked up and told him, "Dinner's at five: don't be late."

Bile rose up in Jim's throat. Maybe Jim wasn't a princess; but he still deserved a knight. "Yes, mom," he whispered, twisting the knob and dashing out the door.

***

Jim'd had nightmares for so long, he hadn't even known nightmare was a word until he'd stumbled upon it in the dictionary one day. They were never and always the same - hell-borne kaleidoscopes of sick and screaming agony, with bloodied murals of Christmas-colored butterflies on the walls. Red, green, red, green, all in an endless cycle of shattered mirrors and razor-sharp claws reaching after him. Sometimes they hit him, other times they stroked him until he sobbed and begged them to stop. Sometimes Jim just laid there and tried to let his nightmares kill him.

Jim always woke up before the killing blow.

***

_To be the mighty hero wise!_  
 _And perch atop the sodden hill_  
 _Of blood and pungent death,_  
 _To lead our race from sure demise._  
 _Let's regain, collect, and rest_  
 _Before the battle slams_  
 _Our dauntless nerve. And now to rise!_  
 _Come follow me - we'll slay the foe!_  
 _See my cloak unfurl._  
 _Through screams and wails, he fails and dies._  
 _Look! he falls across his minions'_  
 _Path. I laugh aloud._  
 _My warriors hold me to the skies._  
 _Overhead the clouds recede,_  
 _Thinning out the black._

Jim Kirk, thirteen, stared down at the body below him, the carpet soaked through. Dark, clotted red stained his hands, Frank Miller's throat, and the knife on the floor. He laughed, and it was an empty thing.

"Did that feel good, Frank?" he asked, kicking the corpse in the nose; the cartilage bent and snapped beneath his boot. " _Did it_?" Frank didn't answer and Jim's face twisted up in rage and he kicked him again and again until his chest was heaving and his boots were splashed with gore. "Screw you, Frank!" he shouted, tears clouding his vision; his throat closed up and he inhaled a few ragged, broken breaths. "I hope they slice you up in _Hell_."

Winona came outside when the Miller house went up in flames; she crossed the yard silently and stood beside Jim, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

Jim didn't return the eye contact, but he did admit lowly, "Frank was not a nice guy."

His mother bent down to pick up the gas can beside him and threw it with a grunt at the house. She jogged back into their own house and returned shortly after with three more canisters of gasoline. She poured them onto the fire one by one, her hair singed and her eyes alight as they both watched the house burn.

***

Mirror, mirror on the wall,

will you catch me as I fall?

***

"Check this out," Finnegan laughed, bending down to grab a handful of snow. It crunched densely in his hands, and the grin nearly split his face in two as he reared his hand back and chucked it clear across the yard.

The snowball hit Jim in the back of the head and he shrieked as it slid shivering down his spine. "What the hell, Finnegan?" he hissed, whipping around to glare at the Irishman and his group of cackling friends.

"What's a' matter, Jimmy-boy?" he howled. "All pain, no game?"

Jim's jaw tightened. "That doesn't even make any sense," he muttered, already turning back around. Another chunk of ice hit him and Jim yelled, "Seriously, what the _fuck_?" He yanked off his glove with his teeth and groaned when his fingers came back slick with blood. "Are you kidding me right now?"

"You will cease and desist this childish behavior at once," a voice calmly intoned to his left.

"Oh-ho-ho," Finnegan snorted. "Jimmy-boy's got himself a little pet."

Jim felt his face heat as he stared up into impassive Vulcan eyes. "I've got this," he said under his breath. "Now go away."

The Vulcan raised one eyebrow, as if he were mocking him. "Very well," he acquiesced with a nod. He took his leave and Jim couldn't help but stare after him, so similar and yet so completely _different_ from the man in his kitchen all those years ago.

Finnegan popped up in Jim's field of vision and smashed a handful of snow up his nose.

Jim saw red; he threw a punch and Finnegan tackled him to ground. When they wound up in the infirmary later, however, it was Jim who had the broken hand and Finny with the broken nose and cheekbone.

***

The nightmares never stopped.

***

"Come on, baby," she laughed, running her hands up the length of him. "Let me make you feel _good_."

Jim froze, his face twisting into that of disgust. He shoved the woman off. "Get out," he said over his shoulder, already picking up his shirt and shrugging into it.

"What the hell?" she demanded; she crossed her hand under her breasts.

"Get," Jim ordered again, "out."

" _No_ ," she hissed; she pressed up against his back then and purred into his ear. "You just got assigned to the _Enterprise_. You can't tell me you don't want a woman of your own to take with you-?"

" _Get out of my quarters_ ," Jim roared, backhanding her. She hit the wall with a squeak and he slammed his fist to the plaster not a centimeter from her skull. His chest heaved as he glared down at her in disgust, trying to reign his emotions back in. His vision swam and nausea swelled up in the back of his throat.

"You're fucking crazy!" she yelled back, a dribble of blood leaking from her nose. "How the hell am I supposed to get on a starship if you won't take me as your woman?"

"Figure it out yourself." Jim grabbed her by the upper arm and practically threw her out of the room (still topless), slamming the door manually in her face. His hands shook violently as he fell to his knees. Jim jammed his knuckles against his eyelids and fought back the hot, wet emotion. "I'm fine, I'm fine, he's not here, he's not here," he stuttered. "He's not here. I'm fine. He's not here."

The buzzer of his door sounded. "Go the hell away!" he shouted.

"Negative," a cool voice responded.

Jim's head whipped up and he keyed the door open. "The hell do you want?" he asked quietly.

The Vulcan from before arched a brow. "I have come to retrieve the young woman's clothing. She is quite distraught."

Jim felt his face shut down. "Right. Hold on." He turned and bent down to scoop up her bra and uniform shirt and thrust them in the other man's direction. "Here."

"My thanks," he said with a nod. Then: "You are Officer Kirk, correct?" Jim nodded stiffly and he continued with, "I am Lieutenant Commander Spock, Chief Science Officer aboard the ISS _Enterprise_."

Unbidden, Jim felt his lips curl. "How on earth do you speak like that?" he teased lightly; Spock's eyebrow rose even higher. "Right, forget I said anything. Well it was nice meeting you, Mr. Spock," he said, leaning forward to drag one fingertip across the Vulcan's jaw. "Anyone ever tell you you'd look good with a beard?"

Spock's other eyebrow twitched. "Illogical," he told Jim and turned on his heel.

***

"Do you seriously use a bonesaw on your patients?" Jim asked the doctor with a laugh, one hand pressed to his swollen jaw. "That's _medieval_."

The man regarded Jim evenly, unimpressed. "I like to keep some decoration on the wall," he said, jabbing a hypo to Jim's neck. "I may be a simple country doctor, but I'm no caveman."

Jim's mouth twitched in a grin. "Whatever you say, Dr. Bonesaw."

The doctor rolled his eyes and turned around to grab the bone knitter on the tray beside him. "Let me give you a little piece of advice, kid," he started softly. "You get yourself some friends on this ship and you get them quick. You bulk up. You don't take no shit. If any of these guys see any sort of weakness in you, they're gonna eat you alive, you hear me?"

Heat shrank the back of Jim's throat suddenly. He blinked a few times, trying to dispel the excess emotion. "I've never had a friend before," he confessed.

The doctor paused in his ministrations, then whispered, "Lucky you got me, then, aren't ya?"

***

"Hel _lo_ ," Jim said appreciatively as one woman walked by him to her station.

She had a knife out and to his throat faster than he could blink. "Let's get one thing straight," she snapped, blade still pressed against his skin, "You are _beneath_ me. I don't have to fuck you, or talk to you, or even _breathe_ in your general direction if I don't want to. You are gonna show me some respect, you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jim replied, only half joking. "Lt. James Kirk."

"Oh, I know who you are," she told him; she slid the tip of the knife delicately across his throat, eyes lighting up as she saw the first pricklings of blood above his skin. "But do you know who _I_ am?"

"Lt. Nyota Uhura," he easily recalled. "Otherwise known as the best communications officer in the entire Empire."

Uhura smiled silkily, finally slipping the blade back into her boot. "Flattery will get you everywhere," she whispered. "You may call me Lt. Uhura."

"Will do," Jim agreed with a wink.

Lieutenant Kirk," a voice called; Jim turned around and couldn't stop the broad grin that spread over his face at the sight that greeted him. "Why are you not at your post?" Spock continued, one eyebrow raised.

"My apologies, Mr. Spock." Jim offered one final smile just for Uhura and started to make his way to his station. "Nice beard, by the way!"

***

Jim's first encounter with the agonizer wasn't as bad as he'd imagined.

That's not to say it wasn't excruciating (its name was _the agonizer_ , after all), but Jim was used to things like this. There was only so much pain the body could take before it shut down - and Jim was good at shutting down.

Jim had been silent for about ten minutes when Captain Pike abruptly switched the device off. "You've been here, what, two years?" he said conversationally, as if Jim hadn't been screaming on the floor not thirty minutes earlier. "Lt. Kirk, right?"

Jim coughed and spat up blood. "Right, sir," he rasped.

Pike smiled pleasantly, all teeth. "You wanna promotion?"

With a blink, Jim straightened, moving to his feet. "What's the catch?" he asked.

The captain leaned in close, lids lowered. "Heard you've got a pretty talented mouth."

Jim matched Pike's expression and cocked his head to the side; he slid a hand up the other man's vest. "You heard right," he confirmed, dropping back to his knees.

***

"And thank you," Jim quipped from behind the Vulcan, plucking a rook from one square and tipping the black queen over. "Checkmate."

Spock blinked, then turned to regard Jim evenly. "You play chess?" he asked.

Jim smiled prettily. "That's not all I play."

***

Bodies,

bodies,

 _everywhere_.

***

"I'm naming Lt. Commander Spock as my First Officer," Jim said, holstering his phaser back in his belt. Bones nodded and turned back to the lift; on the other side of the bridge, Uhura smiled and swivelled her chair around. Ensign Moreau's eyes glittered enticingly as she stared at the strip of flesh where Jim's vest had ripped in the altercation.

Jim turned back to the Vulcan. "What do you say, Mr. Spock?" he asked with a grin.

Spock stared impassively for a beat. "It is unorthodox," he said at last; before Jim could interrupt, he continued with, "I accept."

Later, in his quarters, when Jim was nice and drunk, he pressed his full length up against Spock's backside, murmuring into tauntingly pointed ears, "Mr. Spock, do you bleed butterflies?" Without waiting for a response, he sank his teeth into the bone of Spock's shoulder and sucked hard. "Do you sneak into people's houses at night to murder their children?" he cooed as he dug his fingertips into the tough Vulcan hips. His face twisted suddenly. "Spock," he sobbed.

"O Captain, my Captain," Spock replied in a whisper, flipping them over so he could drag his teeth across Jim's nipple. "Our fearful trip is done; the ship has weather'd every rack; the prize we sought is won." He dipped his hand in the oil beside the bed and impaled Jim with two fingers right off the bat. Spock kissed Jim's thigh. "The port is near, the bells I hear," he recited as he twisted his fingers savagely, "the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring."

"But O heart!" Jim cried out, his spine arching sharp. "heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red."

"Where on the deck my Captain lies," Spock worshipped; the thick hairs of his beard scratched against Jim's sensitive skin.

 _Fallen cold and dead_.

***

The nightmares never stop, do they?

( _No matter who warms your bed._ )

***

How high does the body count grow if left unchecked?

***

"Spock. What is it that will buy you? Power?"

"Fascinating."

"Power, Spock?" _You already have my body, my mind. What more could you want?_ "I can get that for you!"

Spock did not answer him again.

***

"So this is how it ends," Jim whispered tightly, one hand pressed to the bruising at his throat. He stared coldly at the two before him. "Betrayed by my First Officer and my woman." He snapped to action, knife pointed at Spock's neck, but the Vulcan disarmed him easily, pinning him to the floor, arms above his head.

"Forgive me, Captain," Spock whispered, closing his eyes momentarily.

"Bullshit," Jim spat; he glowered up at Spock. "What the hell did that soft-bellied little shit say to you to turn you against me, huh?" Spock was silent and Jim's face twisted in rage. "Answer me, you filthy half-breed! What the _fuck_ ," he hissed, "did that Kirk say to you?" He laughed, but there was no emotion behind it. Jim felt like someone had taken his insides and scooped them out with a razor. He felt raw and uncomfortable, and the one person he thought he could _trust_ -

"He's a better man than me," Jim whispered hoarsely, "isn't he?"

Spock released Jim's hands so he could cup the Human's face. "He is not," he promised, pressing Human kisses to Jim's brow. "He was merely given love, where you were denied it."

Jim's non-existent heart twisted like a moldy rag, squishing uncomfortably in his chest. "I never wanted love," he insisted vehemently. "I don't need a weak emotion like that."

"And yet, here he has convinced me to do the unthinkable," Spock whispered. "Perhaps the emotion is not so weak as you would think it."

Jim's jaw trembled. "I could've done it," he croaked helplessly. "I could've changed for you - overthrown the Empire for you."

"I know, Jim," Spock told him. "I know." He slid two fingers down the side of Jim's face. "I have been, and always shall be yours."

He tried to blink them back, but the tears came anyway. As Spock caressed his face, Jim reached shaking hands up to trace along his ears. "Live long and prosper, Spock," he whispered.

"I shall do neither," Spock told him. "I have killed my Captain and my friend."

Jim's face began to crumple, but he pulled a smile on at the last moment. "Do me a favor, Spock?" he asked.

"Anything," the Vulcan replied.

"Think of me," Jim begged, letting his eyes flutter shut. "Think of me until the end of your days, my Vulcan, and when you ascend to Heaven and see me below you, burning in Hell," Jim's hands trembled violently now, "please pray for me."

"I believe in neither Heaven nor Hell," Spock said in a hushed tone, "but if I did," he continued, "if they existed, I would surely meet you in Hell." Spock settled his hands on either side of Jim's face. "Goodbye, my t'hy'la."

Jim's lips twisted into a mockery of a smile. "Should've learned Vulcan when I had the chance."

Spock's eyes crinkled at the corners. "I would not have told you the meaning of this word."

Jim's lips curled softly at that. "Finally," he murmured to himself; Spock regarded him with a question in his eye, and he continued with, "I finally have my own knight come to save me." Jim laughed wetly, and Spock twisted his hands sharply, the snapping _crack_ of fragile, Human bones echoing through the room.

"Shall I dispose of his body?" Marlena asked, the first words she'd spoken since the other Kirk had departed.

Spock stared down at the lifeless body in his hands. "Perhaps in a moment," he allowed; he gently brushed a curl of hair from Jim's forehead. "My Captain does not answer," he murmured, "his lips are pale and still; He- does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will."

Marlena crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face to the side.

"The ship is anchor'd safe and sound," Spock continued, "its voyage closed and done; From the fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies..." Spock finally released Jim, the last line a haunting in his heart. He pursed his lips and forced them out. "Fallen cold and dead."

"How poetic," Marlena drawled. Spock raised an eyebrow at her. She said, "Why didn't you let him live if you're so broken up about it? Declaring he'd overthrow the Empire for you and all?"

"Vulcans do not get 'broken up'," Spock told her without any real heat. He stood then, clasping his hands tight behind his back. "It is easy for a dying man to proclaim the things he could have done. But just as I knew he did not truly mean the words he spoke, so, too, did Captain Kirk."

"Former," Marlena corrected.

Spock made himself watch as the Tantalus field evaporated Jim's body from his sight. "Yes," he finally said. "I am the Captain now."

_And then I fade in pallid lies._  
 _Returning back to conscious state,_  
 _I let the mirror slate me:_  
 _Fathoming my remote disguise,_  
 _Reflecting back my hopeless lot._  
 _Oh to smash the thing!_  
 _If I could see through tearful eyes._

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that Spock and Jim reference is "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman, and the poem in the fic itself is "Tearful Eyes" by Mark R. Slaughter.


End file.
